Williams, AZ

    Williams AZ is a small town where if you drive through on route 40 you would miss it in a blink. Well, we didn't miss it thanks to our unit member Don Oberg. We pulled in to the Grand Railway RV park to get hooked up and ready for tomorrow's train ride.
 
 Sasha for the first time in her life with us will be staying at the kennel. Vov was getting more anxious as the time neared to leave her. She was to stay there from 8 am to 6 pm, not even spend a night.

   Needless to say, the train ride, the bus ride to the lookouts and the buffet lunch were so amazing that Vov didn't cry too much about Sasha. The train ride was 2 hours long and due to much entertainment and snack buffet we all kept busy. The bus took us to the best lookouts.

 

Las Vegas, NV

 Las Vegas is everything we thought it was and more. The money that's poured in to these buildings is mind boggling and it all comes from gamblers who lost it. Well, my money was hard earned and I won't just give it away without seeing some concert or eating some food.
 I wish I didn't have reservations down the road, we would have stayed longer.
David Copperfield was amazing, all the illusions were unbelievable except we figured out one of his illusions where he has a body double on stage and appears in the audience.

Fresno, CA

 Well, Route 99 was a bit better than 101 although the scenery wasn't as good. A lot of industry along the road. All the tax money they collect and the state is broke.
  Fresno is a nice city with lots of shopping and not much scenery.

Tracy, CA

  This was probably the worst driving day for the whole summer. The road from Ukiah to Tracy was absolutely horrendous. The only good thing was some of the scenery driving through the wine country. The closer we got to San Francisco the worst the road got.  Potholes on top of other potholes. Top that with the fact that I've told Vov that the Golden Gate bridge has an at least $18 toll, we decided to bypass San Francisco and head for Las Vegas.
 Not in one day. of course. Our stop today was Tracy, CA. Nothing exciting happens in Tracy but we decided we needed to rest for 2 nights after such a rough road.
 Tracy has a large RV park with full hook ups but the most unfriendliest host. He interrupted our lunch to pay for our site and chewed us out for using more power, unheard of for an Elks lodge. Their list of rules was a whole page and had to be signed for.
  Tracy is a small town  18000 people with heavy Latino population. Downtown looks very sad, a lot of empty stores, the whole town looks economically depressed.
 Tomorrow on to Fresno. 

Tillamook, OR

 The first stop back in Oregon is Tillamook. The cheese factory is about the only draw of this city, which we definitely visited. Samples of cheddars and monterey jack were generously handed out. We bought smoked cheddar, YUMMM, and garlic jack, YUMMOO.
 The Elks in Tillamook is only 4 miles south of the town with full hook up and a gorgeous park, former horse pasture.
  

Beaver, WA

 This morning's drive was absolutely gorgeous. Most of the way between Sequim and Beaver Rt. 101 went along the Lake Crescent shoreline. It was breathtaking. The half moon shaped lake surrounded by mountains on both sides.

  Now, Beaver ,WA is a no man's land and the only reason we are stopping here is because we want to wait out the Labor Day weekend and all the crowds at the National Park campgrounds. Well, the real reason is that we need electric hook ups so that we can run our truck freezer continuously because it's full of salmon. The reason it's full of salmon is because there is no more room in our trailer freezer because, you guessed it, it's full of salmon.
 The campsite here is nothing to brag about, it's a motel, sorta, and some cabins, sorta with 10 sites only 3 of which have services, sorta. The cafe on premises doesn't look promising but have quite a busy lunch and dinner service. They also bake their own pies that we must try. It'll be a good excuse to sit in the cafe and watch their news channel, since we have had no TV signal for quite some time now. The world may have come to an end for all we know.
  Well, I tried the cherry pie and it was horrible, canned cherries full of corn syrup. The best part was that I made it a la mode and the ice cream was great.
  Finally, after 3 days of nagging Vov agreed to ride out to Clallam Bay. That's about 22 miles north of us, on the shores of Straight of Juan De Fuca. I knew there would be fish there, since it's too early for the salmon to run 22 miles inland plus the river levels are very low since it hasn't rained in God knows how long.
  Clallam Bay is an itsy, bitsy town that is known for it's logging trade. The little grocery/health food/general store owner gave me the run down on fish. There is a store on the corner that sells salmon but they were closed, too early. The fisherman she said were in the next town of Sekiu which was only 2 miles away but the best smoked salmon is in Neah Bay which is 21 miles away. She also showed me her newly acquired dining room for which she couldn't get a chef. So all they would do is get together every Thursday night and have a jam session.
    Sekiu was everything I expected and more. The whole town consisted of campgrounds, marinas with fishing boats and motels for fishermen. Well, since it's a $500 fine for the recreational fishermen to sell fish we were just gonna beg for fish guts. Boy, did we get it!
We got fish roe and milt and salmon heads and carcasses with enough filet on them to have a sushi lunch for 2. We had to call it quits and bolt out of there since we physically have no room in our 3 refrigerators to store any more of anything.
  Of course, on the way back the fish place was open and we ended buying another Coho salmon that we planned on eating as sushi. As a present the guy gave us a King salmon head and a carcass that had filet on it, enough for today's lunch.
  We worked all day today, cooking the carcasses for Sasha. Cleaning the filet for the next 4-5 days of sushi. Freezing some heads and bones for soup.
  I'm in fish heaven again!

Sequim, WA

 143 Port Williams Rd. Sequim, WA 360-683-2763

Sequim's Elks Lodge is basically right in town and it's a little town of pop. 6600 with everything one would need. Little boutiques in the center. Bog box stores on the outskirts such as Walmart and Dollar Tree(Vov is happy).
 We, of course, made another trip to Quincele to see our fishing buddies. That's how we got in trouble, Vov made breakfast for the fishermen and we left with a truck load of Coho salmon.

  Back at the campground we cleaned them, froze some and cooked some every which way. That was an all day job, we were exhausted.

Port Townsend, WA

Point Hudson Marina 103 Hudson St. P.T. WA 360-385-2828

Quilcene, WA

      I don't know why I wanted to stop in Quilcene, WA. Mainly, they had a county park with a campground right in town. Little did I know there is not much of a town. With a population of 600 there wouldn't be any boutiques to shop in. There was hardly a grocery store whose main business was cigarettes, beer and lotto.
      So for lack of something to do we went in search of the waterfront and a marina. We found a little marina with about 5 RV sites next to a huge oyster processing facility that took up most of the waterfront. On our way back we saw some kids looking over this little bridge on to what looked like a stream that turned out to be Little Quilcene River. "Stop The Car", I yelled to Vov and opened my window. "Any fish in there?" I asked one of the kids. He said plenty at which time I got out of the truck, mainly to see if the kid was lying.
   Well, he wasn't. 

Seal Rock, Brinnon, WA

Seal Rock is a National Forest campground. We paid $9 per night and that's half price because of Golden Pass. It is right on the shores of Hood Canal but is completely wooded for shade at every site, just beautiful. The beach is about 25 steps away from our site and it's full of clams and oysters.

Dow Creek RV Resort, Hoodsport, WA

2670 N. Lake Cushman Rd. Hoodsport, WA  360-877-5022
 Dow Creek RV Resort is a great campground that looks more like a state park. We found it due to it accepting Passport America.  Even though there are a couple of cabins that rent to workers from the area, the place mostly caters to travelers.
 We stayed there 2 nights because that's all they would allow for PA members.

Land Yacht Harbor, Olympia, Washington

  Monday August 13, 2012. Our Salmon and Potlatch Rally has come to an end yesterday.  The finale was the salmon dinner on Saturday night. It was slowly grilled on top of Alder wood to perfection and then it just melted in your mouth.
    Our stay here was wonderful. First weekend we attended a Mushroom Festival just about 8 blocks away but with all kinds of culinary shows and sampling. Shuttle traveling back and forth constantly between our campground and the Festival, doesn't get better than that.
   The town of Olympia is just amazing. We have enjoyed music in the park, music in the port, the real farmer's market every weekend on the waterfront.

Land Yacht Harbor Lacey, Washington

 Here it is. Half way mark of our journey. May be not physical but definitely a mental half-mark.
Our plan was to get to Lacey Washington for their Potlach & Salmon rally and here we are.
Although we got here several days earlier than planned due to the terrible noise of the highway in the Vancouver Elks, there are plenty of things to do between Lacey & Olympia so I'm excited.

Cody, WY

We headed out of the Sheridan Walmart at 9 am after a wonderful breakfast of sausage gravy and rolls from Albertson's. Neither Walmart nor Albertson's had biscuits. As they say, we are not in Kansas anymore. They don't eat biscuits in the North.

We left route 90 to head west on route 14 in to the Bighorn National Forest. It started getting hot early. At 9 am our thermometer showed 75, granted it's attached to the Airstream that's aluminum.

The road got winding as soon as we entered the park. It also was very steep going up the mountains but the views were unworldly. Signs on the side of the road read that these mountain tops are actually 250 to 500 billion years old. All of them were under water at one time. The top mountains are the oldest, since they were the first to emerge from the water.

We passed 2 campgrounds that had plenty of empty spaces, granted it was only 10 am. I didn't find out about facilities but it's a National Forest so we would pay half price. After we stopped at B        Junction I found out that there were 3 more campgrounds heading west in the park.

We saw a dead elk on the side of the road with beautiful antlers. I couldn't believe nobody took it for the antlers. Also saw some deer. I have yet to see a buffalo.

As we descended from the mountains we stopped at "Dirty Annies" for some recommended lamb burgers for lunch and they were spectacular at $8 a pop.

We were the first ones at the Rodeo parking lot. They must think we really like Rodeo.
  

Spearfish Campground, WY

Rapid City Elks

Rapid City Elks has 10 sites with hook ups. When we got there, 7 sites were occupied and one RV was leaving. It is a beautiful facility with an 18 hole golf course that's very busy and a gym room and sauna's in the basement with showers.

Lower Brule, SD

 Sunday, June 24 2012

This morning the Indians were sleeping in their tepees while cowboy Lia and cowboy Bob made their escape through the only road out of the town. The Indians forgot to collect the camping fee and cowboy Bob was up at 6 am planning his escape.
Well, I was expecting to have the Indians shooting at us. May be at our tires. No, that won't work then we would be stuck there. May be they would aim right for the Airstream or for the truck but no one was shooting while we made our getaway. No one was even up at 7:30. The town looked abandoned, Casino closed. We finally made it to route 90 without a road block at Reliance, which I assumed is another Indian village.

Lower Brule, South Dakota

Saturday  June 23, 2012.
We left Walmart at around 8:30. The rain has ended and the skies were clearing. Route 23 west is a little rough in spots and construction is very common. We didn't hit any traffic, probably because we are travelling off-season. The season starts July 4th and lasts only 2 months.

After searching along route 90 in South Dakota we settled on a casino 15 miles North of I-90 at exit 248. Larry & Debra settled in Badlands National Park at exit 131. We will meet them tomorrow. The temps got in to upper 80's so we needed something with power.

I think this is the most interesting campground that we have ever stayed in. The whole town turns out to be an Indian Reservation of Lower Brule Sioux Tribe with a casino and an Rv park with electric and water. The view of the Missouri River is priceless. We pulled in at about 5 pm and were the only ones here. Bob was a little uncomfortable to say the least. One hour later a large motor home with 2 motorcycles on a dolly pulled in and we felt better. He has something they can steal, "we don't".

Marshall, Minnesota

Friday June 22, 2012
We left Paul's house at 8 am.
We took route 26 west to route 2 through Wisconsin towards Duluth, Minnesota.

That's where we started running in to problems. Route 210 west that Larry wanted to take was closed due to flooding. Because of the rains from the day before some of the route 35 was flooded also and we had to take detours. It is on one of those detours that we took Larry had a blowout. We pulled off to the side of the road and Larry went too far off the road and the Airstream leaned to one side. He dug his front truck tire trying to pull the trailer out. That's when we pulled our trailer in to a circular driveway across the street and unhooked the trailer. We rigged up a steel cable to our truck and Bob pulled our 4-wheel truck forward until the cable snapped.
Our luck turned when Jim drove by in his SUV. Jim turned out to be the town's supervisor   who lived 20 yards ahead of our trapped trailer.

Hancock, MI

Paul's

Muskegon, MI Elks Lodge

Here we only stayed 2 nights. Not much to do except shop. We went to Grand Rapids, MI, about a 45 mile ride to pick up our new mattress from Woodland Travel Center. Craig in their service department is the best. We took a mattress from one of their new 30 foot Airstreams and they ordered a new one.
One problem though, we fell in love with the new 30 footer.

Elkhart RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum

W. Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana.

Left Maysville Walmart and headed towards Cincinnatti via "AA" highway. Around the city to Route 74, around Indianapolis to 31 North which was not a bad local road, highway at times. Ending up at another Walmart on the south end of South Bend, Indiana.
Another successful free night.

Sault Saint Marie Elks Lodge

 Well, this is the reason we joined the Elks Lodge. This absolutely amazing location of the lodge with no sites being occupied absolutely floored me.

Running North

 On Sunday morning we left Lexington at 8:00 am. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We traveled 330 miles and ended up in a Walmart parking lot in Maysville, KY.
 The trip took us through the mountains with every shade of green imaginable. Highway 64 was not bad until we got to the toll road 77 & 64, it was like galloping on a horse. These Kentuckians need to learn how to patch the roads or better yet how to manage their toll proceeds.
  Past Huntersville we made a turn on to Route 9 at Grayson and found a wonderful, state maintained "AA Highway". This road had no traffic and smooth like a baby's butt.

Following in The Footsteps of Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee Caravan

Visiting Mama

 Two weeks were spent at Mom's house on the floor.

Harley, John & Merlot

We found Heaven. It's in Virginia near the start of our caravan. It's where dogs roam free. People eat on decks overlooking the Potomac river and relax by the pond filled with Koi and bullfrogs. We were only able to spend one day in Heaven but that's more than most people who never make it to Heaven.
Our Airstream is luckier than us, it will spend 2 weeks in Heaven before we start the Robert E. Lee caravan.

Carolina Crossroads

Thursday, May 10 we stayed at Carolina Crossroads Campground. One of the best on route 95. A little pricey at $21.50 PA rate.

Pine Acres, Aiken, GA

We didn't make much headway on Wednesday. The weather was awful, there were storms all around us. We decided to pull in to a PA campground in Aiken, GA. Pine Acres, is a place that rents trailers and where people live long-term. Even though we had a nice pull-through site with full hook up for $15. It was 5 miles off Highway 20.

The Anderson's

Two days and three nights we spent in the Anderson's yard. We were close to the garage so that we had electric and Frank offered us water but we had some in our tank.
We were supposed to receive our RV mattress at the Anderson's address, since it never made it to our house.

The first day Joan and I went shopping to the Apple store and Joan bought herself an Ipad 3. Then we went on to a Barnes & Noble and I received a shock of my summer, seeing paperbacks at $15.00. Our lunch at "Slices" of calzones with peppers, onions and peppers was excellent and we came back and got 2 more for guys for dinner.

The next day got even better and we went shopping again to Hobby Lobby and a fabric store. That night St. Joseph's Catholic Church hosted the Russian Orthodox Church's choir group "Lyra". They sang church music and some folk songs and sounded like angels. The acoustics in the church are phenomenal. The echo lasts 7 seconds. The church was built in late 1800's for $100,000. It is one of the most beautiful churches I've seen in US.

The mattress never made it to Joan's house and I filed a charge dispute with my bank.

The Anderson's hospitality is heartwarming and I didn't want to leave since Joan had more books I wanted to see and Joan could have used several more lessons with the Ipad. May be on the way back.

May 5, 2012

Here we are in May of 2012. Aquaries has sold in June of 2011. We moved in to our dream home in September of 2011. Now we are off on an adventure of our life. We will circumnavigate the whole country starting in Virginia with our friends Debra and Larry Owens.
But first we must visit some friends and family on the way. We left Saturday morning at 10 am. Saturday is actually a very good day to leave since there is not much traffic, except around Tampa. We docked at a very nice campground 1 mile from I-75 Exit 439, Lee's Country CG. For $16.50 a night.
Tomorrow we are headed to Macon, Georgia to visit our friends Frank & Joan Anderson.
Good Bye house we'll miss ya.